It's too easy to say that this is not the "right time" to seek criminal prosecution for political crimes. For crimes against the State. For war crimes. Or that we need to look forward, and not backward. That we don't need to think about retribution or revenge. Is this the answer you would want from any Law Enforcement or Judicial system whenever crimes against Person or State have or may have been committed, that we should look forward and not backward? What if the offense were against you personally? Would you still feel that way?

And what about Justice? The application of Justice can only be applied towards acts already committed. The future is reserved for prevention, and the application of Justice is part of that prevention.

The "right time" to do this is now! If not now, then when?

This past Friday, May 29, 2009, Bill Moyers Journal devoted the entire hour to discussion and review of a 2008 joint documentary film effort between the George Washington University's National Security Archive and Washington Media Associates entitled: Torturing Democracy.

Those of us who are old enough to remember the anti-war movement of the Vietnam War era know first hand how much influence the mainstream media can have on forming public opinion. And until the media, often referred to as The Fourth Estate, for reasons largely unearned today, began showing Americans the real horrors of that war, any war, this nation was polarized between the younger and older generations. What came to be known as The Generation Gap reared it's ugly head in nearly every home across America where there were teenagers. Eventually the media message began to show the harsh truth and the generations began to unite and put an end to the Vietnam War. To all war. Or so we hoped...

Now it is over thirty years later, and many of the players who kept the imperial military of this country on constant alert for imaginary threats, are still behind the scenes quietly manipulating foreign and domestic policy, while simultaneously using the powerful corporate mainstream media to forge public opinion using lies, nonsensical logic and a dangerous ideology of false National Pride to polarize our citizenry. Between Republican and Democrat. Democrat and Independent. Rich and poor. The Powerful and the powerless.

I was aware of this documentary when it was first released, and I tried to watch it objectively. It wasn't easy. Sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes the truth is ugly and heartbreaking. Like betrayal, you feel sick, impotent, angry. As bad as Vietnam turned out to be, this film demonstrates clearly that our leadership has not learned the lessons we had hoped. But have in fact, only dug in their heels, and found ways to turn further towards the The Dark Side. Last Fall during the presidential campaign when Michelle Obama was condemned by FOX news and the like for proclaiming that she was more proud to be an American than she had been in a long time, many of us knew she was speaking patriotically, and that America was once again on a virtuous track. Even so, while I appreciate her sentiment, and wish it were so, I am nonetheless unconvinced of it myself.

But after revisiting this film via Bill Moyers last Friday, I felt compelled to help bring attention to some of the finest investigative reporting I've seen during the last eight plus years. And the embarrassing and horrifying truth that tells a story of raw political ambition for power and wealth, with little to no regard for the law. Not domestic constitutional law, or international law. Where the most vulnerable people of the world become the foundation on which their empires are built.

This film speaks of brutality. Of cruelty. Of inhumanity. And until we fully face these horrors and acknowledge their reality and hold those accountable, the forces behind these atrocities will continue to engulf our civilization, until the day we collectively wake up either in global bondage and/or on a ravaged planet that is dying from a continuing and unsustainable plunder of her human and natural resources, by a few selfish and arrogant global criminals.

Pay attention to this topic. Watch the film. Share your views...

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